Last year I lost over a stone and a half within about 2 months. I was impressed with the results but feel that I’d lost a lot of muscle size. I’m hoping to start losing weight and toning at the end of January and would like to know what’s the best way to do it without losing the muscle size I’ve spent months building. I think last year I may have overly starved myself but I was continuously using my muscles with high rep, low weight workouts. Should I incorporate heavy weights into my regime every so often to keep the size? I’d like to lose a lot more fat this time so am prepared to work extra hard, but still want to shed the fat quickly. Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Hi,
If you are interested to loose weight please follow six steps programm
Lose weight in 6 easy steps
Step 1. Determine if you are overweight
Do this by:
Checking your BMI
Checking your WHR
Now answer the following two questions:

Does your BMI exceed 25?
Is your WHR greater than 1.0 (if you are male) or 0, 85 if you are female?
If your answer is No to both questions, then your weight is within the normal range. Stick to a balanced diet and exercise at least three time weekly. Health 24 offers a variety of exercise programmes. A brisk walk for 20 minutes three times a week is a good start!
If your answer is Yes to both questions, proceed to Step 2. For more information, read the article Do this first.

It is an excellent idea for all potential slimmers to first have a medical checkup before they begin with a weight-loss programme.

Step 4. Prepare yourself mentally to lose weight
This step requires you to be brutally honest. Ask yourself whose idea it is that you should lose weight. Or are you convinced that this is what you want to do for yourself and your health?
Don’t kid yourself that you are going to stick to a diet and pump iron, if the idea of losing weight comes from someone else. You are the one who must be 100% certain that you want to lose weight and that you are prepared to make the necessary changes to achieve your goal.
Read more about the obese personality.

Step 5: Complete your final checklist:
If you answer ‘Yes’ to the following questions, then you know you are ready to start losing weight:
Are you really overweight?
Have you set yourself a realistic and achievable weight-loss target?
Are you in good health?
Has your doctor given you the green light to diet and exercise?
Are you relaxed and calm and feeling positive about your slimming programme?
Have you sorted out any psychological problems that could prevent you from losing weight?
Are YOU the one who wants to lose weight?
Is your support system in place and is your partner, spouse, family 100% behind you in this venture?
How did you score?
1-3: You need to go back to the drawing board, start again and sort out those problem areas.
1-6: You still need to do some work on certain areas – solve a few problems before you start.
7-8: You are ready and as prepared as you will ever be – get going with that diet and exercise right now!

Step 6: Choose your diet
You want to lose weight, you are ready to go. But which diet? What should you eat and where do you start? What about the Atkins Diet and fad diets? Why a boring balanced diet? Or a shake? Do calories really count? And how do you know the calorie count of specific foodstuffs? Or which foodstuffs can be substituted with others with the same calorie count? And what about low fat and fat free and low carbs? What’s the role of fibre and how much of it should you eat? What about diet pills and slimming drugs? Confused? Don’t feel alone!
Here are the basics in a nutshell:
Basic 1: If calories in (per mouth) = calories out (by organs to keep you alive and muscles while exercising); your weight will be stable.
If calories in > calories out; you will gain weight and will be overweight.
If calories in < calories out; you will lose weight.
Read all about calories in our Calorie Corner.
Basic 2: A calorie from a carbohydrate = a calorie from a fat.
But: 1 g fat has almost twice as many calories as 1 g bread/starch/pasta or another carbohydrate or 1 g protein (fish/chicken/meat).
And: Too much fat in your diet will increase your risk for heart disease.
Basic 3: Calculate how many calories you need to lose 0,5 – 1 kg per week.
Calculate your BMR.
Decrease you daily calorie intake by 500 cal to lose 0,5 – 1 kg per week.
Exercise burn calories. See how many calories you burn while running, walking, rowing and more.
Basic 4: How much of what to eat?
Eat a variety of food according to a Balanced Eating plan.
Stick to the Food Pyramid.
You need more or less: 6 servings of bread/pasta/cereal/rice daily; 3 – 5 vegetables; 2 – 4 fruits; 2 cups of fat free milk/yoghurt or cheese; 2 palm-sized portions of meat/chicken without the fat strips or skin, or fish, eggs or nuts; not more than 4 teaspoons of margarine, fats or oils per day.
Basic 5: Choose the right diet for yourself
Make sure that the diet you plan to follow does not contain more calories than you need to consume.
Steer clear of fad diets promising quick results.
Here’s an example of a ready-made diet plan for you.
Follow our portion plan diet.
Compile your own diet plan according to the principles in Basic 4.
Basic 6: Log your progress
Measure your weight as well as your hip and waist measurements, and your resting pulse rate weekly. Calculate your BMI and WHR monthly.
Log it in a logbook.
You will soon get a taste (oops, feel) of achievement.
Feel Free to Contact
Dr.Mojo

What worked for me was going on Weight-watchers, no skimping on eating and you can have your sweet things as well. I played squash [loved that] and i did weights. I started off working with small weights it gives your body definition but then i decided no i want some muscle so i worked with heavy weights, i looked fab, not overly muscled but lean . I jogged in the evenings but guess what Hubby complained i yack to the men to much and started making excuses whenever i wanted to gym. Eventualy i got so demotivated i stopped exercising completely. Now, well now i am curvaceous i believe it is called now, not to fat but dont like what i see anyway. Go ahead, enjoy your exercising and don’t let anybody put you off. But be careful to it is addictive, that is no lie:))))) Looking forward to seeing you in one of the lads magazines hehehehe.

If you are trying to lose weight there are literally hundreds of ideas out there. In my opinion, the best way, which has been proven time and time again, is a two part method: Eat right and exercise. First, exercise is a no-brainer. You have to burn more calories than you take in for exercise to be considered exercise. How you do it is worth another answer all to itself. So, that brings us to the Eating Right part. If you understand how your body works, you’ve got a head start on the world. Food is fuel for the body. Once you’ve accepted that concept as more important than the idea that food is entertainment, then the rest will be relatively easy. If you are American, and I assume you are, the Nutrition Facts label that you find on all foods bought in the U.S. are the next thing you need to understand. Go grab something from your kitchen (i.e. jar of peanut butter or a bag of chips…anything with a nutrition label). OK, yeah you need vitamins and minerals and all that. But focus on these three items: FAT, PROTEIN, and CARBOHYDRATES.
Let’s take these one at a time:

FAT is basically divided into good fats and bad fats. The body needs good fats (mono- and poly-unsaturateds). You’ll find these in stuff like olives and avocados where the bad fat is minimal if not nonexistent. The bad fats are your saturated and trans fats that you’ll find in meats and oils. If you are trying to lose weight, keep these to an absolute minimum. My suggestion (based on a 1500-2000 calorie diet) is to limit yourself to no more than 15g of saturated fat per day. This is hard to do if you’re used to eating fast food. It’s also hard to do if you drink whole milk, eat cheese (even the 2% variety), and eat fried foods. All of these are high in bad fats. The good news is that you can substitute your diet to eat the very things you like to eat but with better ingredients. If you eat cheese, buy fat free. If you drink milk, buy skim. Slowly take yourself down from whole milk or 2% to 1% before going skim/fat free if the transition is too radical to do all at once. If you eat a lot of ground beef, use the extra lean variety (96% fat free/4% fat), or substitute lean ground turkey instead. Do whatever you have to do to get the bad fat grams down to less than 15 per day.

PROTEIN: The building block of nutrition (aside from your vitamins and minerals) is protein. You need it strengthen your muscles and it will be essential with your exercise routine. Without protein, you can’t build muscle tone or lean body mass. And guess what? Just having lean body mass (muscles) allows your body to burn more calories even when you are sleeping. Therefore, you are able to lose weight (bad weight, that is) just by sleeping. But, you have to exercise!! Don’t forget that. You can find foods that are high in protein but also high in saturated fat, so be careful. Stick to poultry (chicken, turkey), fish (tuna is a great source), and beans. Don’t fry your meats because if you do, you just added a bunch of bad fat to your otherwise healthy protein filled meal. Instead, grill, broil, or bake. You can do this! Don’t forget to exercise to exponentially reap the rewards of consuming protein.

CARBS. In my opinion, the no-carb diet is crap, because you need carbs for energy, especially because you are exercising! That’s right, you can’t forget you are supposed to be exercising. The trick is choosing the good carbs. You’ll see on your nutrition label Total Carbohydrates and Sugars. Sugars should be kept to a minimum and should be avoided within hours of going to sleep. The calories associated with them get stored (for energy) but are not easily burned when it comes time to burn them. Therefore, it’s harder to lose the weight associated with them. That’s why it’s not good to eat lots of candy, cookies, and ice cream that have a lot of sugar. The other kinds of carbs (complex carbohydrates) are essential. You can get these from grains and potatoes. Good stuff!!

Now that you have a brief understanding of these three nutrition components, time to get to it. Not as easy as it sounds? That’s because, you’re human. If you treat your body right (and I mean very right, by limiting your saturated and trans fats, limiting your sugar carbs, and eating plenty of protein), then you deserve a day when you can eat whatever you want. The body has cravings and you should be able to fulfill these cravings IF you can stand to wait until the end of the week. I call this one day of decadence your cheat day. After 12 weeks of exercising and eating right in this manner, you’ll get to the point where you don’t even crave the bad stuff anymore.

For more on this method, I encourage you to check out http://www.bodyforlife.com. The principals I wrote about are spelled out in greater detail there. Consult your doctor before drastically changing any diet or exercise routine. Good luck!